#BMW 2500CS E9

[diabolus1exmachina]

Fiat Dino 2400 

It looks modern still, despite its age. Bertone styled the fastback Coupé, a steel monocoque like the Pininfarina-designed Spider, which was unveiled at the Geneva show in March 1967. It has lean lines that are good from every angle. There’s a hint of aggression from the forward-leaning four-headlamp snout and a well-proportioned elegance created by the flowing curves over the wheels and the neatly resolved tail. The steering is unpowered and when you’re going slowly it’s laughably heavy. The wheel is a very Italian feature, a nice wood rim and perforated alloy spokes – it looks handsome and feels great. Behind it there’s a veneered plywood dash well stocked with legible black-on-white Veglia dials. The 9000rpm tacho and 250km/h (155mph) speedo, with their quaint fishtail needles, flank gauges for the oil and water temperature, oil pressure and fuel contents together with an analogue clock. A twist of the key and the V6 engine fires up with a lovely, bassy rumble through the big twin tailpipes. That dog-leg gearbox and the ‘Dino 2400’ badge on the back mark this out as a later version of a car that had been created as a way to homologate Ferrari’s V6 engine for Formula 2 racing, which required a production engine block with at least 500 units built. That was too many for Ferrari to handle, so it struck a cunning deal with Fiat to put the engine into a road car.In 1969 the 2.0-litre V6 was replaced by a new 2.4-litre iron-block engine with an extra 20bhp and enough extra torque that the gearbox had to be upgraded to the stronger ZF unit with its dog-leg first gear. The gear lever gate is quite narrow between second and third, so you can easily get fifth by mistake when changing up, Contemporary tests gave a 0-60mph time of just under nine seconds for the Coupé, about half a second shy of the lighter Spider. It’s respectable performance for its era, about the same as a BMW 2500CS E9. All the Fiat Dinos have double wishbone front suspension, but where the earlier Dinos have live axle and leaf springs at the back, the 2400s have a strut-type independent rear end, The car is very surefooted, althought it’s also quite firm on the road. In the wet, it doesn’t hesitate or jump or wiggle at all.